Science Festival Alliance helps connect scientists and the public

Science festivals are spreading across the country. These events draw large …

Since our coverage of the San Diego science festival in 2009, science festivals have built momentum. Roughly 17 states will hold at least one this year; Philadelphia is currently celebrating its first festival this month, and San Francisco will join it later in the year. A network run by the Science Festival Alliance is helping cities plan and organize events to connect scientists with the public.

With more effort and money channeling into science festivals, it’s important to determine if the resources are well spent. Does outreach of this scale work for science? While science festivals draw large crowds, do they truly inform the public about science? Do people stay excited about science once the festivals are over? To gain some insight, we spoke with Ben Wiehe, manager of the Science Festival Alliance.

Ars Technica: How did the Science Festival Alliance start?

Ben Wiehe: The Science Festival Alliance started with a grant from the Nation Science Foundation (NSF). That grant provides support for four individual science festival efforts: one in San Diego, one in Cambridge, one in San Francisco, and one in Philadelphia. Those four are all going to celebrate this year. Philadelphia and San Francisco are celebrating for the first time this year. There is a lot of learning that happened from San Diego and Cambridge; they’re fairly experienced at this by now. Philadelphia and San Francisco are newbies, but we can help them from what we learned and experienced in festivals done by other cities. We are always learning more about how to make festivals better every year.

Ars: It’s great to have a short period of celebration for science, but when I talk to educators, many of them mention that students need sustained education throughout the year. Do you think it’s worth all the money and effort for a short celebration?

Wiehe: No, I don’t think festivals are worth all the money and effort if it’s just a short celebration. I think you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who would think it’s worth it if it’s just a couple of great days with no follow-up for the rest of the year.

We have evaluation data that we are building on that shows that the festivals are successful at increasing interest in and knowledge of science and technology. As much fun as they are, we are taking festival events very seriously, and measuring their impact. But it’s also important to recognize that these are massive collaborations that rally all the major stakeholders in a community. The festivals are all seeking to leverage their huge crowds and great energy to put a spotlight on and magnify the ongoing programs and education resources in an area. It’s about bringing community members and scientists together to form professional relationships that can deliver science to the community throughout the year.

Single big events are important because they can make an impact on a lot of people at once. For example, as part of this year’s Philadelphia Science Festival, a robot threw out the first pitch in a Phillies game. That made the highlights on ESPN. These things are worthwhile in themselves, but you do want to see these things grow past just a few days of outreach.

These big events reach thousands of people at once, and this gets them thinking about science. We are evaluating the best ways to get them to think about science past just the festival. More importantly, now there’s a network of professionals that can do events through the year. The Science Festival Alliance is really about building a professional community, so we can be honest about the successes and failures in science outreach.

Ars: As science festivals become more popular, you will need to help a diverse range of communities host successful events. Do you run into issues with controversial topics in science like evolution, climate change, and cloning? Not all communities agree on those issues.

Wiehe: It’s important to point out that we’re not trying to franchise the concept of science festivals. Science festivals are for the community, by the community. If science festivals aren’t fully supported by individual communities, they won’t be sustainable. Community members play a major part in organizing festivals, so they are intimately aware of what topics are accepted within a community. For example, a community in Nebraska is organizing a festival next year. There will be topics there that will work, but there will be some that won’t. This is the case for every festival. A science festival in Nebraska won’t be—and shouldn’t be—the same as one in San Francisco.

Ars: What about rural areas? Do you think rural communities have the resources to support science festivals?

Wiehe: There is a group in Missouri called SCOPE (Science and Citizens Organized for Purpose and Exploration). They’re dedicated to increasing science education in Missouri. I was talking with them a while ago about how to reach rural populations in Missouri. Can we do a festival?

In the course of that conversation, we realized that this audience is already going to state fairs. We could do a science and technology pavilion at state fairs, which they did last year. Whenever you are presenting science to the public you want to adjust what you are doing for the audience you are working with. Science topics can be viewed as political issues, so we have to be careful. Nevertheless, we work hard to bring the latest findings from scientists to people without altering it to fit ideologies.

Ars: Overall, what motivates you about science festivals?

Wiehe: Scientific discoveries are the forefront of knowledge. Technology is at the cutting edge of what we can do. These are inherently fascinating topics. To be citizens of the world, we should be excited about science and technology. It’s also important for a democratic society to give citizens access to knowledge and discoveries in science and technology.

Our textbooks are filled with amazing scientists, but most of them are all dead. Science festivals are remarkable because there are opportunities for people to have real face-to-face interactions with scientists who are currently doing research.

Wiehe tells us that an evaluation of last year’s festivals at Cambridge and San Diego shows that the science events do have a positive impact. The Science Festival Alliance will do further evaluations this year on four festivals (Cambridge, San Diego, San Francisco, and Philadelphia). We will probably have to wait for data to be gathered for a few more years before we have an informed idea about how science festivals affect communities.

Nevertheless, bringing science to the public via engaging annual festivals will at least remind people that science is a part of our lives—it's not something that happened in the past and can only be learned from textbooks. Scientists are currently working on multiple issues that will impact our future. Like Wiehe said, to be good citizens in a democratic society, we must be aware of what’s happening in science and technology.

12 Reader Comments

While a good idea, it seems half baked. That or maybe facts about particulars of the festival were not outlined in the article.

I do think that more science and technology expos would be a good thing as long as they don't devolve into a renaissance fair mentality where I'm required to write my name on my underwear to participate.

Roughly 17 states will hold at least one this year; Philadelphia is currently celebrating its first festival this month, and San Francisco will join it later in the year.

What? No information about these upcoming festivals? They might be more popular if you publicize them a bit.

The Science Festival Alliance link only mentions one festival in the SF Bay Area for all of 2011. For example, it mentions the Maker Faire in San Mateo last year, but not the one coming up in a few weeks.

"2nd Place: "Women Were Designed For Homemaking"Jonathan Goode (grade 7) applied findings from many fields of science to support his conclusion that God designed women for homemaking: physics shows that women have a lower center of gravity than men, making them more suited to carrying groceries and laundry baskets; biology shows that women were designed to carry un-born babies in their wombs and to feed born babies milk, making them the natural choice for child rearing; social sciences show that the wages for women workers are lower than for normal workers, meaning that they are unable to work as well and thus earn equal pay; and exegetics shows that God created Eve as a companion for Adam, not as a co-worker."

Yun Xie / Yun Xie / Yun Xie is a contributing science writer at Ars, where she covers the latest advancements in science and technology for Ars. She currently works in scientific communications, policy, and review.